Can a woman be too beautiful for a job?  At first thought, it is natural to wonder why a woman’s beauty alone would make her unsuitable for a job.  Model, television hostess, real estate saleswoman are examples of when a woman’s good looks are in her favor.  But applying for building superintendent or chief engineer should have nothing to do with any applicant’s attractiveness, at least according to the new liberal social thinking in America. What should be first considered are the job applicant’s qualifications, such as education, experience, performance and written tests, and perhaps letters of recommendation. 

Apparently this is not so according to a study originally published in the May/June issue of the Journal of Social Psychology by Assistant Professor of Management Stefanie Johnson of the University of Colorado Denver Business School, a beautiful woman may be at a disadvantage when applying for employment in a job which hiring managers consider “masculine” or in which looks are not considered important to doing the job. 

Professor Johnson found that “beauty has an ugly side, at least for women” when applying for jobs which are seen as masculine.  Some of the jobs looked at included: finance director, mechanical engineer, supervisorial jobs in construction, and managerial jobs in research and development.  In fact, according to Johnson, “In these professions being attractive was highly detrimental to women.”  She goes on to say that this was not the case with men, and in every other type of job attractive women were preferred.

The study, which was co-authored by Robert Dipboye, Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida, Kenneth Podratz, UPS Shipping Manager, and Ellie Gibbons, research assistant at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, found that attractive men did not suffer the same discrimination and that they were “always at an advantage.”

Overall, though, beautiful people still have a significant advantage: higher salaries, better job evaluations, higher admission rates to college, better voter appeal when running for office and in court trials, judgments more often in their favor.

A recent Newsweek survey of 202 hiring managers and 964 members of the general public showed that a double standard exists where looks matter more in the workplace for women than men in certain jobs.  On a scale of 1 to 10 which ranked nine character traits, looks ranked higher than education and a sense of humor.

Researchers have coined the term “beauty is beastly” regarding the perception of attractiveness in women being considered of more importance in jobs thought of as “feminine.”  In one experiment 55 photos each of men and women were given to participants who were asked to rate their suitability for certain jobs.  Again, in jobs perceived to be masculine such as director of security, hardware sales person, prison guard, attractive women were more often chosen for secretary and administrative assistant positions.

Johnson says that while attractiveness in personnel can be seen as contributing to the suitability for certain jobs such as face-to-face contacts and sales, it should be weighted equally between women and men.  She wants to see less stereotyping for physical appearance and more importance given to the information about the qualities of the person.   

No broad prohibition should result such as a job being too dangerous for a beautiful woman such as if she were to be hired for night duty in a building located in a seedy section of town.  Human Resources might want to specify that a male be hired.  But taking into account the individual qualifications of the individual should be the goal.  What if she had been trained and worked before as a police officer and was a firearms expert?  Then again there might be a situation where strength was extremely important. The qualifications of the individual should be the first consideration in hiring for a position.